Forgot My Hat
by TwinEnigma
Summary: In which the TARDIS hijacks the Eleventh Doctor to tie up loose ends he's forgotten about, Rory and Amy ride a zeppelin, Rose and Metacrisis Ten get closure, many ridiculous hats are tried on, and Craig documents. See inside for all spoiler warnings.
1. The Beach

_**Forgot My Hat**_

**By TwinEnigma**

_Warnings: Spoilers for Journey's End, blink and you'll miss it spoilers for The Lodger, Pandorica Opens/Big Bang, Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon, The Doctor's Wife; Amy x Rory, Doctor x TARDIS, Metacrisis Doctor x Rose._

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><p><em><span>Forgot My Hat<span>  
><em>

Or _The Most Excellent Story Of Tying Up Loose Ends And Trying On Fashionable Hats In Zeppelins_, as told by Miss Sexy and dictated to the Pretty One, with liberal narrative embellishments provided by Silent Fellow (deceased) and summarily edited into coherency by Craig Owens of Aickman Road.

_ The first thing you must know upon reading this story is that the Doctor is a madman with a box. He surrounds himself with all sorts of interesting people, but has many, many enemies, and is profoundly attracted to all sorts of danger and trouble. And he has the most terrible sense of direction in the universe, so his mad blue box, the TARDIS, drives for him._

_ This episode takes place after some particularly bizarre adventure, involving an evil house (again, really, Doctor?), some mention of the TARDIS being a girl for real, and before whoever this Silent person was left this on my doorstep in a heap of bloodstained papers. There was also a previously established event in the timeline that apparently was involved, resulting in more than one Doctor, but that bit is rather confusing and... well, it's all very complicated. It is split into parts, but none appear to be in any sort of linear chronological order. That being said, the original manuscript of this reads like a mishmash of a bizarre, nightmarish captain's log and the incoherent ramblings of two terribly mad individuals at a time travel convention. I've tried to make it as clear as possible from the point of view of the most coherent timeline mentioned, but it can be rather confounding at times, as apparently the TARDIS preferred to refer to individuals by nickname, Rory the Pretty One preferred calling everyone by name and this Silent Fellow constantly referred to them all as targets._

_ In short, I rewrote the entire bloody thing._

- Craig Owens, editor.

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><p><strong>Part 1: The Beach<strong>

The TARDIS had just left the Dårlig Ulv-Stranden of a parallel universe, leaving a rather poignant impression in the sand and two very much emotionally conflicted persons standing hand-in-hand on the beach, staring at the now-empty space. The third person present, one Jackie Tyler, was not so conflicted. She had, in fact, resolved to be quite thoroughly annoyed with the fact that she was, once more, on a beach in the middle of nowhere in Norway and now had to wait with only the company of her liable-to-explode-at-any-moment daughter, Rose, and the normally-infuriating-but-scarily-somber-and-slightly-human-daughter-stealing-mad-alien, the Doctor. Or his double, at any rate, which was really making things quite confusing.

Really, she loved them, but the way they were just staring at the empty spot made Jackie quite worried. They both looked like they'd had the universe pulled out from under their feet.

...Which, in a manner of speaking, was exactly what had happened to at least one of them. Jackie understood that the Doctor had been with the TARDIS for a very, very long time. It was all that remained of his world and people and, for all intents and purposes, was the only home he'd had left until he came crashing into their lives with all the grace of a bull in a china shop.

She sighed and just as she was about to call out to them, there was a familiar grinding noise and a blast of wind.

_Vworp-vworp-vworp._

The blue box was rematerializing, right in the spot it had left, and there was something a little bit different about it, but that hardly seemed to matter now. After all that bullocks about dimensional retrowhatsis and 'you need to stay here with him, who is me and needs therapy, Rose,' he hadn't been away more than a bloody moment before he was right back in their lives. The nerve of the Original Doctor!

Jackie Tyler cracked her knuckles and marched over.

Rose stared at the TARDIS, numb with shock, but the New Doctor reached for it first, almost as if drawn by instinct, disbelief etched on his face. His fingers touched the doors and reverently traced a small, white logo on the door.

"I haven't seen this logo in ages," the New Doctor said. "I thought I'd never see it again... Oh, old girl, look at you! You're still the most beautiful thing I've ever known."

It may have been Jackie's imagination, but she was almost certain the TARDIS had just _purred_ in a purely mechanical way.

Rose suddenly seemed to wake up from her daze and reached for the door handle.

It was right then that the door opened and the most ridiculous young man Jackie had ever seen stuck his head out. The floppy-haired young man took one look at the lot of them, made the most ridiculous face in the universe, and slammed the door in their faces.

Rose blinked.

The New Doctor blinked.

The door opened again. This time, the ridiculous young man was smiling. He tweaked his silly bow tie once, drew himself up to his full height and opened his mouth: "Hello, Rose, Other Me, Jackie."

"You regenerated," Rose observed, sounding more than a little overwhelmed.

Jackie stared, privately wondering if all Time Lords got younger when they regenerated. Why, he looked practically younger than Rose!

Rose slapped the, well, regenerated Original Doctor.

"Ow!" the Original Doctor said, rubbing his stinging cheek. "That hurt! What was that for?"

"You left, just a moment ago!" she shouted. "And now you just come back... like... like _nothing's happened_?"

"I suppose I deserve that," the Original Doctor cedes hesitantly. "A moment ago, really? As in literally a moment ago? Not three years from now? That would explain where the zeppelin went. And the lack of suits."

The New Doctor's eyes narrowed calculatingly.

"Oi! You can't just come popping in and out as you please, Doctor!" Jackie said, hands on her hips. "Weren't you the one going on about that dimensional retro-thingy and how it'd close forever?"

The Doctor froze, guilt painted across that new, innocent face.

Jackie slapped him quite hard.

"Forgot about those Tyler women slaps, didn't miss those," the Doctor mumbled, getting oriented once more. He then turned around, clapped his hands together and smiled at his slightly-human counterpart. "Ah, let's get caught up, shall we?"

He then reached out and butted him right in the head with an audible crack.

Both Doctors stumbled backwards, clutching their heads and wincing. At last, they both straightened up and stared at each other.

"You're _rude,"_ the New Doctor said, pointedly, and then made a strange face. "Oh no, you're definitely _not_ invited."

The Original Doctor fidgeted. "The timeline..."

"Can piss off," the New Doctor practically snarled. "It's m- _no_, just _no. _And no _hats._"

"Doctor!"

A woman's voice, unfamiliar and slightly Scottish, came from within the TARDIS.

"Busy!" the Original called back, over his shoulder.

This time, a man appeared behind the Doctor. He was sort of mousey and gangly, but there was a certain charm to his face. "Doctor, um... _she_ says we need to be on our way and you should hurry up with that _thing_ you forgot."

Rose narrowed her eyes at the strange man.

"Right, right," the Original Doctor said, fumbling through his pockets. At last, he pulled out something that looked like a funny rock and tossed it at the New Doctor. "This is for you. Sort of forgot it in the confusion last time. Except I didn't, but that was another universe – little bits are missing, kind of like a Xerox, except bigger and universe-shaped... Actually, forget the Xerox. There is no Xerox, which is why I didn't give you that this time. But never mind all that, the Old Girl's very insistent you have this. You'll have to build the console from scratch, but there should be some parts lying around a rift if you're lucky. Except when you're done, you can't call her Sexy – that's what I call her. You'll have to call her something else, like Sexy Too or Fred."

Rose mouthed the word _sexy_, seemingly unable to determine whether or not she wanted to be incredulous or furious.

Jackie peered at it curiously. "What is it?"

"This is a TARDIS coral," the New Doctor said reverently. He looked up at the other him soberly. "It'd take centuries."

"Not if you shatterfry the plasmic shell and modify the dimensional stabilizer to a foldback harmony of 36.3. It'd accelerate the growth power by 59," the strange man behind the Original Doctor said.

Both Doctors stared at him, flummoxed expressions on their faces.

"Rory!" the Original Doctor said, wide-eyed. "How...?"

"Um... yeah, about that, Doctor," the man sighed, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "The TARDIS – _Sexy_, sorry – says she thought she told you that she would tell me these things. And she says she'd already warned you to stop _pushing_ her doors – pull them, like it says on the sign."

Several things happened at once.

Jackie blinked, holding out her hand. "Hold on, he calls his ship _Sexy?_ You can't be serious!"

Rose couldn't help the laugh, turning away to hide the absolute war of emotions on her face. "I knew it. Just like any other bloke with his _car._"

"Oi!" the New Doctor exclaimed, indignantly. "She's not some silly _car!_ She's the most wonderful ship in the universe!"

"Rory, you're the pretty one?" the Original Doctor cried, aghast. He turned to the door of the TARDIS and pouted at it. "I thought you were talking about _Amy!_"

"Oh, quit moping, Doctor," the woman's voice from earlier said. A young, pretty redheaded woman appeared in the doorway and Rose visibly stiffened, as if slapped.

"I am not moping," the Original Doctor said, sulkily. "I do not mope."

Jackie privately thought he was still a terrible liar.

The redheaded woman looked at her and smiled, shoving her way past Rory and the now sputtering Original Doctor. "I recognize you! You used to travel with him, yeah?"

Rose drew herself up to her full height, back rigid. "Yeah. 'M Rose Tyler. That's m' mum, Jackie. And that's... the Doctor. Well, the _new new new _Doctor."

"Name's Amy, Amy Pond," the woman says, getting uncomfortably close. She leaned on Rose's shoulder and her eyes softened as she pointed at Rory, saying, "That's my husband, Rory."

Rory gave them a little, sheepish wave.

Rose sagged a little, letting out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. "You're married?"

"Having a bit of a second honeymoon, if you catch my drift," Amy said, winking. She then looked thoroughly at the New Doctor, as if attempting to see _her_ Doctor in him, and finally smiled. "So that's what you used to look like, eh? Bit of a dish, isn't he, you lucky girl!"

Rose's face went a brilliant shade of red as Amy elbowed her gently and the New Doctor sputtered in shock.

"Now, Rory and I can't figure this out. Was the Doctor always so good at giving mixed sig–"

"No, no, we'll have none of that, Pond!" the Original Doctor said, lunging forward. He grabbed her by the arm and tried to quickly steer her back to the TARDIS. "Bad enough she had to talk to Sarah Jane..."

Rose couldn't help it. She laughed. It was as if something was cut free and she just laughed and laughed until she was out of breath. Then, she composed herself, sniffling a little. "Yes, yes, he certainly is. And I guess he _still_ strokes bits of the TARDIS?"

"Yeah, yeah, he does," Rory said, giving the Original Doctor an apologetic look. "Well, you _do._"

"But you're okay, right?" Rose asked, looking at the new young face of the Doctor.

"I'm the king of okay," the Original Doctor said, smiling a little. He gave her an assuring pat on the shoulder and tipped up her chin. "Brave heart, Rose."

Jackie turned away. He really was a terrible liar.

"Now, Rory, Amy, we'd better get going before we're _really _stuck here," the Original Doctor said, turning around. "And I did promise to take you to the Eye of Orion."

Amy seemed to glide right past him and quickly hugged Rose, whispering something in her ear that made her turn bright red. Amy winked and then ducked back into the TARDIS.

The New Doctor opened his mouth, something wonderful, foreign and musical all at once coming from him, a stark contrast to the serious expression he wore.

"I know," the Original Doctor said, quietly. "You know us. I'll sort it."

Then, he too ducked inside.

Rory lingered in the doorway a moment, turning to look back at them, and, when his eyes met Jackie's, she stiffened in fear. As gangly and plain as he looked, this man was _old_, older than the Doctor, and for one moment, frighteningly dangerous. "Don't worry," he said. "Amy and I will look after him. I promise."

"Thank you," Rose said, sniffling as she tried to hold back her tears.

The door closed.

Jackie watched her daughter and the New Doctor close their eyes as the old familiar sound washed over them again.

Once more, it was just three people standing on a deserted beach in Norway, with only the outline in the sand where the TARDIS once stood. One was drying her tears, a thin, hopeful smile threatening to break across her face. The next was quiet, wistfully examining the precious key to the universe in his hand, and smiled at the way it glowed with a tiny golden light. The third looked up to the sky and breathed a sigh of relief.

On the horizon, a zeppelin had come to take them home.

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><p><em>Of course, much of this is pure speculation, but knowing the Doctor, it happened exactly like that.<em>

_- C. Owens, Editor  
><em>


	2. Miss Sexy Takes The Wheel

_**Forgot My Hat**_

**By TwinEnigma**

_Warnings: Spoilers for Journey's End, blink and you'll miss it spoilers for The Lodger, Pandorica Opens/Big Bang, Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon, The Doctor's Wife; Amy x Rory, Doctor x TARDIS, Metacrisis Doctor x Rose._

* * *

><p><em><span>Forgot My Hat<span>  
><em>

Or _The Most Excellent Story Of Tying Up Loose Ends And Trying On Fashionable Hats In Zeppelins_, as told by Miss Sexy and dictated to the Pretty One, with liberal narrative embellishments provided by Silent Fellow (deceased) and summarily edited into coherency by Craig Owens of Aickman Road.

_The most important thing to understand about the TARDIS is that she is 1: quite very much alive and 2: incredibly sentient. She also has a mind for delivering the Doctor to exactly where he needs to be, even if he himself is quite firmly opposed to going anywhere other than where he wants to be._

- Craig Owens, editor.

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><p><strong>Part 2: Miss Sexy Takes The Wheel<strong>

Rory Williams resisted the urge to twitch. There was this feeling in the back of his mind that things were about to take a strange turn. It was an odd feeling, but not altogether unlike a sense of déjà vu, if only in the vaguest sense that something was familiar.

His wife, Amy, seemed rather distracted, but she had been of late and he could understand why. After what they'd seen at Lake Silencio, well, he'd be lying if he said that he wasn't more than a little bit preoccupied, too. Which, naturally, brought his thoughts to their doomed friend, the Doctor.

Blissfully unaware of Rory's scrutiny, the Doctor was currently rambling on quite excitedly about the Eye of Orion, flitting about the control console and pushing whatever buttons happened to strike his fancy. This was hardly unusual, as the Doctor tended to be quite enthusiastic about places he was fond of (and doubly so if he suspected there to be an adventure waiting).

Rory could feel his nose itching with the smell of dust after rain and, again, there was that strange feeling that _something_ was about to happen. He cast a dubious look at the central column of the console and the steady light shining there. Could it be the TARDIS, still trying to tell him something? After all, she _had_ chosen to talk to him through that poor Idris woman and maybe there was still a little something left over, like an echo or something.

The thought wasn't quite that assuring, if he was to be perfectly honest. The TARDIS had been entirely too much for a human body to handle, utterly destroying her host, and if there was even the slightest chance that she was still actively knocking about in his head, how long could he hope to possibly hold up? It wasn't like the TARDIS had a very good grip on human boundaries, after all, and she might not totally be aware she was spilling a little too much into his head for his own well-being. Still, Rory had quite plainly had enough of dying, thank you very much, and if he could have just one adventure where his life was not in constant peril or hanging on by the barest threads of improbability, it'd be a welcome change of pace.

The urge to twitch came again.

"…And here we go!" the Doctor said, finally slamming home the lever for the engines.

A great shudder rocked through the TARDIS, sending Amy tumbling backwards into Rory's arms and prompting a thoroughly sexy smile from her. The lights flickered ominously as the loud wooshing wail of the engines came to a screeching halt. Already, the Doctor was off for the doors like a shot, eager for harmless fun and adventure, and, dutifully, they found themselves following, if only just to keep the Doctor out of trouble.

"The Eye of Orion!" aforementioned Time Lord declared proudly, throwing open the doors.

There was a moment of silence as the Doctor paused and then pulled the doors closed again. He turned around, giving the control console a bewildered look, and then promptly did that frowny-face thing he always did when he was troubled by something unexpected.

The TARDIS, however, seemed to be having none of it and promptly turned off all the lights except the ones leading to the door.

Looking quite like the petulant child he could oft be accused of being, the Doctor turned back to the doors and threw them back open. "_Not_ the Eye of Orion," he declared, sulkily.

Rory and Amy carefully peered around him and Rory resisted the urge to sigh. He should have known.

"I think you need to work on your landings a bit there, Doctor," Amy said, patting his shoulder. "Looks like a shop to me."

"A _hat_ shop," the Doctor said, rapidly going from sulking to utter glee. He eagerly plunged right on into the shop, making a beeline for a fedora that seemed utterly overpriced. It was on his head in a heartbeat and doffed just as quickly for a style of top hat that was decidedly ancient. That, too, was tossed to the side, as the Doctor had found a ridiculous beret to replace it.

Amy gave Rory one of those looks, a look he knew well as it generally translated to "we should go after him before he gets himself in too much trouble" and, though it was probably a terrible idea, they stepped into the shop.

All in all, it wasn't the biggest of shops and, while it did boast a rather impressive collection of fashionable hats, it seemed to be decidedly vacant at the moment. It was a bit showy, too, and certainly more posh than anything Rory had seen, if only in a purely tourist-y sense. There was also a distant thrumming coming from somewhere under their feet and the vague impression that they were somehow moving. Combined, the effect somewhat reminded Rory of the hotel boutique on that cruise the Doctor had booked them on.

"Um, Doctor, do you get the sense that we're moving?" Rory asked.

"Of course we are, Rory," the Doctor said, abandoning another hat that hadn't suited his fancy for a rather oddly colored bowler. He looked up, crinkling his nose at the ceiling a bit as he looked around and added, "In the air, from the sound of it."

And before the Doctor could even finish thinking the thought of _airship_, much less say it aloud, his feet were already in the process of toting the delighted Time Lord towards the door and whatever adventures it concealed beyond its frame. In short order, the buzz of the sonic filled the air and stopped with an audible click on the part of the lock.

"Come along, Ponds," the Doctor called out, opening the door. He peered out into the space beyond, eyes wide, and mumbled, "Hopefully, this will be better than the last airship I was on."

Rory didn't much like the sound of that. In his experience travelling with the Doctor, statements like that tended to not only attract trouble but _ensure_ it. Sod's Law, apparently, loved the Doctor with a terrible passion, though that's not to say that it didn't have a healthy attraction to his friends, too. With a sigh, Rory figured that he should just resign himself to his fate to be imperiled (and quite possibly face certain doom) again and hurry along after the Doctor and Amy before anything in the shop revealed itself as unfriendly.

He followed them and it turned out his hunch about the hotel boutique wasn't entirely too far off the mark.

They were standing in the middle of an extensive, luxurious lobby. To their left, there was a sign directing them to the day spa and the restaurant, which had a terribly pretentious and particularly odd name. The TARDIS, it seemed, had taken the liberty of translating the name for them, purely out of her own amusement, as Rory had significant doubts that it was actually supposed to be in English.

"A flying hotel!" the Doctor exclaimed happily, practically bouncing towards an empty desk, the sign above it proudly proclaiming _Reception._ "Oh, this is grand!"

Rory privately decided that it was not a good time to bring up how the cruise had ended and, instead, tried to preoccupy himself with exploring in a direction that seemed safe.

"Where _is_ everyone?" Amy asked, giving the lobby a good once-over. "Place like this, there should at least be someone at the desk."

The Doctor whipped out his sonic, scanning the desk, and drifted ever closer to the ever-tempting silver bell on the desk with the _Ring for Service_ placard. His hand hovered over it and, in that moment, Rory could swear he felt his life flash before his eyes.

It was right then that the doors on the other side of the room burst open with a bang, a flustered bride and incredibly skinny groom running out at top speed.

"Don't just stand there, _run!_" the groom shouted, practically vaulting over a coffee table.

Rory prided himself on having honed incredible instincts of preservation since starting his travels with the Doctor. Naturally, this meant his first thought was to grab his wife – Amy tended to freeze a little when surprised – and _then_ make a break for the TARDIS.

"Doctor!" Amy shouted, seeing that the Time Lord was not following them away from whatever the imminent peril was.

In fact, it appeared he was headed straight into the very room the fleeing newlyweds were desperately running from. Worse, he was smiling.

"Rory!" Amy pleaded, pulling against his grip.

"He'll be fine," Rory said, knowing full well what she was going to say next. "Probably."

"Rory!" Amy's tone was now scolding.

He stopped for a moment, pulling her into a kiss, and then started running after the other couple again, pulling his stunned wife along.

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><p><em>In travelling with the Doctor, it is always important to understand that the only real rule of travelling with the Doctor is that running is quite possibly the best thing for your continued good health. The first addendum, understandably, is remembering where the TARDIS landed, so that you can run there in the fastest manner possible.<em>

_- C. Owens, Editor_


End file.
